Late­ly I’m lov­ing on Apple Music. Yes, I could be a bit biased, but the com­bi­na­tion of iTunes Match and Apple Music means that I have access to most of the vast num­ber of songs I’ve ripped from CDs with­out tak­ing up all the space on my iPhone, and I can lis­ten to them any­where, as well as any­thing else in the iTunes Music Store. I’m look­ing for­ward to the release of the Android app, because when it comes out we can take advan­tage of the fam­i­ly mem­ber­ship plan.

Last.fm is a won­der­ful place to keep up with artists you know you like and to dis­cov­er new ones. The scrob­bling fea­ture works with many devices and pro­grams to track the music you lis­ten to, if you want to share that infor­ma­tion with friends (and see what they lis­ten to). I love the “radio” fea­ture in their own appli­ca­tion, but it’s just based on one artist.

Pan­do­ra is anoth­er way to dis­cov­er great music. Enter the names of some artists you like, and it’ll cre­ate a radio sta­tion that plays those artists and sim­i­lar ones you’ll love, based on the Music Genome Project.

Noise­trade is the place to down­load total­ly free, legal music from up and com­ing artists. There’s no junk here—it’s all good stuff, and you can find every­thing from folk to hip-hop to alter­na­tive to met­al and gospel.

If you don’t have a Spoti­ify account yet, go open one now. You can get a free account, but if you have a smart­phone you’ll prob­a­bly be tempt­ed into the pre­mi­um account before long, and it’s def­i­nite­ly worth­while. Their music library is incred­i­ble. The only songs I haven’t found there when I’ve searched have been filk (a regret­table ommis­sion, and one I have sug­gest­ed that they rec­ti­fy). You can share your playlists with oth­ers and even store your own music on their servers for lis­ten­ing with­out tak­ing up all the space on your mobile device.

Are you old enough to remem­ber mix tapes? Then you might enjoy 8tracks.com. Tell them what you feel like hear­ing

Musi­cov­ery com­bines moods and artists to suit your lis­ten­ing tastes even more close­ly.